Cost Benefit of Poultry Farming in Kashmir Valley: Case Study in Anantnag District

Poultry farming from last decade earn a good name in terms of income and employment generation in Kashmir valley. Taking this point as our concern we go through the cost benefit of poultry farming in Kashmir valley. As our study area is district Anantnag and we take one medium size poultry farm as our sample. The study shows that the income from poultry farming is so reasonable and normal profits are earned with less effort. So government should have to think about this industry and support them financially and give them new information’s and training regarding poultry farming through which the production and productivity increase. .


Introduction
As we know the number of poultry farms as well as the birds in Jammu and Kashmir is increasing at increasing rate, which is encouraging sign for further development of the poultry farming. It can be supported with the production of eggs and poultry meat. Through the government has recognised its importance, the new policies and innovative steps has to be taken as it is expected, the improvement can be made through breeding, feeding, disease control (like most common bird flu), management, financial assistance, genetic modified breeds, etc.
It has been seen during survey that deprived and minor farmers have very partial resources available and they are mainly depend on poultry farming for their livelihood, which clearly depicts that the growth of poultry farming sector can put in to help in generating the income and employment in Kashmir valley. It has been observed that still government has not aware about the potential of this sector how it is useful for the upliftment of poor farmers. It is the need of hour that we should have to raise the awareness about the importance of poultry farming among the people and also make efforts in making the interference of government in this sector through which it become fruitful in near future. Poultry farming is very help full in reduction in poverty and it also help in providing nutritional food for common masses. Beside that it plays an important role in the rural woman empowerment.
Poultry industry adds much livestock in the economy of Kashmir, during past years poultry sector contribute in eradication of poverty and increase the nutrition in our day to day food consumption. To increase the production and productivity in this sector we have to take some measures like to increase reproductive efficiency, lower the mortality rate, improve the veterinary health care and extension services etc. And also use the domestically available home-grown feed resources and ethno-veterinary medication, and educating farmers can be viable options to improve poultry farming production in valley.

Materials and Methods
The current study is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data is collected through schedule and the study area was district Anantnag, cost benefit analysis should be done on the data which has been collected during the survey. A single medium size poultry farm is taken as study sample.
Secondary data has been collected from, books, journals, newspapers, and various search engines, are also used.

Literature Review
Poultry farming has become a remunerative business and pre-eminence over all other livestock enterprises in the developing countries. It carries a scope for quick and large profit (Rath, Mandal, & Panda, 2015). Poultry has been given impetus for improving rural livelihood. It is mainly concentrated in vast rural areas featured by low input and output scavenging, with minimal investment in housing, feeding, watering and health care (Singh, Chakraborty, Altaf, Taggar, Kumar N., & Kumar D., 2018).
Poultry meat (broiler) is an important source of high quality proteins, minerals and vitamins to balance the human diet. Depending on the farm size, broiler farming can be a main source of family income or can provide subsidiary income. Poultry can also provide gainful employment to rural youths throughout the year. Poultry manure has high fertilizer value and can be used for increasing yield of crops (Dwivedi, Dolma, & Sharma, 2016). Poultry represents an appropriate system to feed the fast growing human population and to provide income particularly to landless and small farmers, especially women.
It makes one of the best uses of locally available resources. Although requiring low resource inputs and generally considered secondary to other agricultural activities by smallholder farmers, this type of production has an important contribution in supplying local populations with additional income and high quality protein (Ram, Singh, & Laishram, 2017). Poultry farming is a traditional system of rearing poultry with small flock size of native birds by farmers to meet their dietary or small cash needs. It is an eco-friendly approach as these are very active in pest control and also provide manure. Backyard poultry provides supplementary income in shortest possible time with very minimum capital investment, simple in operation and ensures availability of egg and meat even in remote rural areas (Sonkar, Singh, Santra, Verma, & Soni, 2020).

Discussion
The J&K is rich in the native germplasm (living genetic resources such as seeds or tissues that maintained for the purpose of animal and plant breeding, preservation and other research uses) in terms of sheep, goat, cattle, camel, yak, and poultry. The farm animal genetic resources of J&K are the backbone of the agrarian economy through the production of milk, meat, manure, eggs, pelts, fibres, hides, and germplasm for research and development of new breeds and strains (Rather, Shanaz, Ganai, & Hamadani, 2020).
There are three types of poultry farms like small farms 500 to 1000 birds, medium farms 1500 to 3000 birds, large farms are contain above 3000 birds. Current study is done on medium poultry farm in Anantnag.

Figure 2. Total Cost in Medium Size Poultry Farm (Total Birds 2500)
Source: field survey From the above Table 2 the total cost is 238750 rupees for 2500 birds, to raise them from chick to 1 -1 1/2 kg. During survey we got a mean price of per kg chicken which is 115 rupees. By analysing this figure we got results like, total revenue from 2500 chickens are 287500 rupees, (profit= revenue-costs) and when we deducted the total cost from it the figure come out from this is 48750 rupees.

Conclusion
Add up the above discussion it can be proved that poultry farming shows an immense role in creating employment and uplift the lower income groups through generating their income through which they sustain their livelihood. The results of the study show that poultry farming becomes an alternative job for many farmers. Looking towards the profit earned through the poultry farming and low investment, many marginal farmers and also land less workers invest in this sector. In short the poultry industry extended its wings due to its demand and profit approach. In this respect, government policies should be made which give boost to this sector both through innovation and financial support.